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An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."

Giant squid and some other large squid species maintain neutral buoyancy in seawater through an ammonium chloride solution which flows throughout their body and is lighter than seawater. This differs from the method of floatation used by fish, which involves a gas-filled swim bladder. The solution tastes somewhat like salmiakki and makes giant squid unattractive for general human consumption.

I think #2 could easily be "open chain of squid restaurants" or "conquer the world"

You could also sell them as exotic pets to rich, stupid people.

A more legitimate use would be to prevent them from going extinct. They don't seem to be classified as endangered, but I'd guess that might have more to do with our ability to observe and count them than their actual likelyhood of going extinct.

What came to my mind first though was that giant squids might then be useful as model organisms for various studies. The giant axons of squids (regular sized squids, giant axons) were useful for first i [nih.gov]

Some neuroscientists still work with the giant squid axon. And yes, it was used extensively in neuroscience, an elegant collection of works by Hodgkin and Huxley (foundation of modern electrophysiology) comes to mind. They even received a Nobel prize for their work in 1963 (the research was published in the early 50s).

Some neuroscientists still work with the giant squid axon. And yes, it was used extensively in neuroscience, an elegant collection of works by Hodgkin and Huxley (foundation of modern electrophysiology) comes to mind. They even received a Nobel prize for their work in 1963 (the research was published in the early 50s).

I guess my bias was showing a little there:-P My undergrad neuroscience prof must have been better than I thought if I even vaguely remembered that.

The original movie sucked. Watch it again, its only merits are its campiness. I can't understand why they're remaking it either. Even as a kid the huge divergence from the original story annoyed me. Perseus never rode the Pegasus (though he aided in its creation). The writing was terrible "Gifts from the gods must never be questioned."

Well, you have to admit that at least on this one, they're remaking a movie that last appeared many decades ago. For contrast, look at some comic-based movies: The Hulk, which had the Ang Lee version starring Eric Bana 7-8 years ago, and then only a few years later they make yet another remake, this time starring Edward Norton. WTF? And now, we hear that they want to make a new 3D version of Spider-Man, after we just got done watching a trilogy by Sam Raimi (the new 3D version will be with someone else,

I'm done for. They will scan my brain for remnants of this article, do away with me and march on New Zealand to rescue their brothers and sisters.

I am starting to get worried now. I am pretty sure that I have not acquired any lumps of metal in my eyes over the last 44 years, but how can I be sure? This is my first time in a really strong magnetic field and I don't want to find out what it feels like if there are unaccounted metallic splinters in there. I plan to keep my eyes closed.

Not really. If you read the wiki article carefully, you will see that SQUIDS are used in "microtesla" MRI. This is not the normal MRI. If you go to a hospital you will probably get a 1.5 Tesla scan. If you volunteer as a research subject you might get a 3 T scan or rarely a 7 T scan.

SQUIDS are used for MEG though. If you are being prepped for brain surgery for epilepsy you might get one of those, although most places still just use EEG, which is an order of magnitude (or 2) cheaper.

"meant to"? who sets those rules anyway. have you asked a squid if it likes it or not? maybe they fucking LOVE being in captivity, for all you know they hate having to swim about all day trying to find food with the threat of starvation ever present.

My dog wasn't meant to live inside either, but that doesn't stop him howling at the back door wanting to come in and jump all over the bed.

That isn't singing. Air is escaping from the squid's pores because there isn't enough atmospheric pressure at sea level to properly hold the colloidal structure together which makes it sound like the squid is singing.

I was thinking about this issue myself when I read it. How hard would it be to emulate the pressure on a body of water large enough for a squid to survive in? I'd imagine pretty damn hard and extremely expensive right?

In fact, further to my other response to you, thinking about this, is it actually a problem? They're talking about raising from eggs I believe, so would an egg born squid suffer the problem if brought up entirely in a much lower pressure body of water?

Is the ability to only be able to cope with high pressure genetic, or is it merely a result of natural growth at that pressure?

"Giant" is a misnomer. Compared to the average squid, these things are pretty huge, but they are only 2m in length in most cases. You could probably keep one fed on a couple broiler chickens every fourth day or so.

When I hear "giant squid," I think of a... giant squid. Per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: "Giant squid can grow to a tremendous size: recent estimates put the maximum size at 13 metres (43 ft) for females and 10 metres (33 ft) for males from caudal fin to the tip of the two long tentacles (second only to the colossal squid at an estimated 14 metres (46 ft), one of the largest living organisms)."

We're talking about animals here, not plants. Just about any decent-sized tree has more mass than the largest squid.

And I believe the current record for largest living organism (which again is a plant) is the Aspen tree, in particular a grove of them in Colorado somewhere. All the "trees" are actually just shoots coming out of the same huge set of underground roots.

Go to the Gulf of California. They have the Humboldt squid there. Find them, toss in your chicken, watch the carnage. of course you might have to lure them with some bait first. They usually eat fish not birds.

Myself, I would like a few Humboldt squid for bait. One of them would be bait for a few trips.

Silly me thought someone was going to attempt to learn their language--many species of squid use bio-luminescence to signal to each other in the depths, and the variety of patterns seen leads some scientists to believe that they have developed a rich visual language.